


Fools

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 19:32:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16898613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark





	Fools

1 Stones

 

When he has recovered from the battle, Thor calls for the Bifrost.

He's surprised and relieved to find Heimdall at its helm.

“To Svartalfheim, if you don't mind,” Thor says, and Heimdall nods and sends him on his way.

Thor's blood runs cold as he surveys the plain. He wonders if he has somehow lost his bearings.

He doesn't see his brother's body anywhere.

No carcass picked clean and no birds who might have done it.

His stomach turns over and he has to sip cautious breaths to keep from vomiting. The wind is so fierce he has no chance of finding footprints. He can't imagine who would want to steal Loki's corpse, or who would even think to look for it.

He tears Malekith's ship to shreds searching for his brother's body beneath the wreckage. He finds only Malekith – a smear of black, red, and pink.

Thor calls to Heimdall.

“Did someone take my brother's body?” Thor asks.

“No, my lord,” The guardian replies, and all of Thor's hair stands on end.

My lord. So I am king.

“If you have need of me, call my name,” Heimdall continues. “I will be watching you, Odinson.”

“Thank you.”

Thor isn't sure what he wants to do.

He's so tired.

It's all he can do to keep from weeping. He wants to buy himself time. And he's so angry. Disgusted with himself as much as his brother. His bitterness drives him and gives him a twisted semblance of strength.

He makes his way to the throne and knows as soon as the doors open. He can feel it against his skin.

His brother's magic.

Another one of Loki's illusions. Thor nearly cries, but Loki has schooled him well in lying, and Thor is much too tired for truth.

He refuses the throne and offers the hammer. The latter he does because he's feeling sadistic. He knows Loki will have to refuse it, for he cannot lift it. It gives Thor some spiteful satisfaction.

Thor wonders if he should be mourning his father. His heart isn't ready to mourn again. It has had too much of the stuff.

Thor returns to Midgard to seek respite with Jane. He needs a moment to let his head clear so that he may think properly again; so that he may prepare himself for all that he must do, and say goodbye to all that he's about to give up.

But it seems Thor's luck has entirely run out.

Jane smells strange. When Thor kisses her, his nose wrinkles.

“Are you well?” Thor asks.

“Yeah, why?” she says, quirking a brow.

“You smell... ill,” Thor says, frowning.

“Excuse me?” she laughs, but Thor isn't smiling.

“I need to speak with Stark,” Thor says. “May I borrow your phone?”

Jane sits, smiling fondly, while a millennium old god uses her cell phone. Thor has Tony's number memorized. Jane wonders how many decimal positions of pi Thor would be able to remember.

Thor asks Stark if he got sick from his time in space when he crossed the portal into the Chitauri's realm.

“No, but I was in the suit and I wasn't up there very long. Why do you ask?”

“Jane went through the Bifrost, and the Aether took her as a host,” Thor says.

“Yeah, what exactly, is the Aether?” Tony asks.

“It is... concentrated space,” Thor tries. “I have no real words for it.”

“Fuck,” Tony sighs. “Get her over here.”

They fly to New York.

Thor enjoys the ride. Mjolnir moves so quickly he rarely has time to take in the view. And it's quiet and clear in the plane. No wind in his ears and eyes. He basks in the simple pleasures of the clouds floating beside him and the brave young woman slumped warm against him, sleeping.

Stark has his own medical unit. Sterile and bright, but with a sturdiness to it that is absent in most hospitals.

Thor asks Jane if she would like him to stay or prefer that he give her privacy. She asks both Thor and Stark to stay.

Jarvis handles most of the questions. Somehow it's easier to respond to them when no one is looking you in the eye as you answer.

“Have you experienced any nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, or headaches since you traveled through the Bifrost?” Jarvis asks.

“I had all of those when I got to Asgard. I thought it was nerves. And then I got them again right after Thor left, but... I figured it was... different nerves.”

“Our healers could do nothing for you while the Aether was in you.”

“I'm afraid ours can't do anything either,” Jarvis says softly. “There are treatments for radiation poisoning from other sources, but none for cosmic radiation. I'm sorry, Miss Foster.”

“Wait here for me, please,” Thor says, with a faint tremor in his voice, and makes his way up to the roof before calling Heimdall.

Thor goes to Asgard's healers and asks them to come to Midgard with him, but they fear Odin will not approve, and Thor has told no one that he is now the rightful king, so he can't order them to do it.

“What are you waiting for? Go with him,” the not-king says, and Thor turns to see his father's face in the doorway behind him. “Thor's mortal saved every skin in the realms. The least you can do is save hers.”

Thor nods his thanks and departs with two of Asgard's most skilled healers. They don't bat an eye when he tells them to climb onto his person and hold on tight, but he catches them grinning at the end of the flight to the Bifrost.

Thor looks on as Jane talks her way through her treatment, translating everything the healers are doing into her own scientific terms. Stark chimes in often.

It soothes Thor to see his friends in their element and to know Jane will be well - that she won't be another of his casualties.

He tries not to imagine his brother's motives.

He accompanies Jane back to London and stays to keep an eye on her so that he can be certain she is mended. She sleeps a lot, but the healers said that she would. Thor cooks eggs and slices fresh fruits for her when she wakes. For dinner, she orders them four pizzas. She eats one of them all by herself and Thor grins, impressed, and pats her distended belly to make her blush.

While Jane naps, Thor reluctantly lets himself think.

It occurs to him that he's had his own way for twelve hundred years, which is eleven hundred more than any of his mortal friends could hope for.

That he's been greedy.

That he should be grateful he's been free for this long.

That he's being a coward.

Selfish.

That he's running.

Hiding.

Still childish.

That the burden of the throne is his to bear.

That he doesn't have to do it the way his father did.

That he needs to find out what Loki did with Odin.

Thor makes his way to the throne with a benign smile on his face.

He doesn't kneel at the foot, but continues straight up the steps and sets Mjolnir on Loki's lap.

“No more illusions, brother.”

Loki's glamour melts away and the guards hoist their spears and look uneasy. Thor raises a hand to halt them.

Loki's mouth is in a tight line and his eyes are shining, but Thor doesn't trust his brother's appearances.

“Where is he?” Thor asks.

“In bed.”

“Dead?”

“No,” Loki says. “I put him into an Odinsleep.”

“When will he wake?

“He will not. He would have you killed. He imprisoned your friends for their loyalty. He has become what he fought to destroy. Even your mortals know that he who fights monsters must take care not to become one. He is no longer himself.”

“None of us are.”

“You are,” Loki says.

“I'm not,” Thor snarls, and Loki's eyes go wide. “You've done away with me at last. Does it please you, this victory? After you ended my mortal life on Midgard, you showed no relief to find that I was still alive as a god. You merely tried to kill me again. Then I watched you fall. Thought you dead – twice - and each time you let me believe it.”

“I'm more useful dead than alive,” Loki offers.

“It broke me to lose you, but the reverse cannot be said, can it?” Thor murmurs, drawing a knife from his belt. “If I plunged this dagger into my breast, you'd be relieved, wouldn't you? It's what you've wanted.”

Thor centers the blade over his heart and Loki screams.

The knife dissolves with Loki's seidr and slips through Thor's fingers like sand.

Loki sits, panting, while Thor shakes his head.

“What do you want?” Thor says. “I've been asking myself for years now and found no trace of an answer. You said you never wanted the throne, but here you sit. Why?”

“For you!” Loki yelps, eyes wide and brow in knots. “I don't want you to do this. To have to choose the lesser of two evils. I would have you free from this burden. Good to the last. Not warped like Odin. There is nothing this throne can do to me that I have not already done to myself.”

“Loki, the things you've done to yourself have been nightmares,” Thor whispers. “Suicide. Pacts with killers. More poison will not mend you. I was made for this cage. You would go mad in it. It would always be the same, brother. You love change too much to perform the same tasks every day for the rest of your life.”

“I would bear it for you,” Loki breathes, and Thor shakes his head sadly.

“I believe you want to,” Thor admits. “And that you would try. But how long would it be, Loki, before someone set off your temper – or you simply grew bored – and innocents were made to pay for your amusement with their lives? A year? Ten? Or only a matter of hours. What doyou want – not for me, not for the past, not for honor or Asgard or approval. What do you want for yourself?"

“You, you idiot,” Loki hisses. “I want my brother back. As you were. Just this one piece of my past still perfect. You're all I have.”

“You're too late,” Thor says, and smiles sadly. “Thor is dead-”

“No,” Loki begs, cheeks wet and lips twisted.

“Do you know what it's like to hear the prayers of our people in your head?”

“What?” Loki whispers, and his mouth gapes afterward - he has heard no prayers.

“No matter what world you're on, they reach you,” Thor murmurs. “My head is filled with thoughts and fears that are not my own but are mine to tend to. There is no more Thor. I'm the Allfather now - I belong to the realms.”

Thor takes up his hammer and turns to leave.

“Father belonged to Mother,” Loki whispers, desperate.

Thor's steps briefly falter, but he does not stay.

“Guards,” Thor calls. “Keep his secret and let him be. Asgard owes him its thanks for his service in the war. He earned his death. Let him reap whatever benefits he may glean from it.”

Thor goes to Odin's sleeping chamber and finds his father, just as Loki said he would.

He hates that Loki is right - that something in Odin is broken.

Loki watches as his brother mends the realm.

Thor's friends aid in the repairs. Loki does, too, but not while anyone is looking.

The cows and mares grow fat with calves and foals after Thor visits all the barns. He stands by deer deep in the woods as they give birth, waiting until the fawns have wobbled up onto their feet and are able to run from wolves before departing.

He rarely sleeps.

Sometimes Thor sees Loki in the middle of the night, sitting on the bed by his feet, staring out the window. Humming absentmindedly. Occasionally falling asleep.

Thor imagines this must be what it's like to have a ghost haunting you. The joy of seeing your lost love sharpening your sorrow at the impasse between you.

Loki watches as Thor wakes, startled from sleep by prayers at odd intervals throughout the night, and rushes out of bed to attempt to answer them. Loki fears that Asgard's demands will wear his brother out.

Loki is often absent for long stretches of time.

Thor doesn't ask where he goes.

And Loki's prediction was right. Odin does not wake. He dies in his sleep, and Thor is heartbroken that his father had no chance to fall in battle, or to become himself again. That he died believing both of his sons to be traitors.

When Odin's ship passes over the edge of the realm, Thor feels as though some part of himself falls with it.

Loki slips from realm to realm by secret paths, weaving vast webs.

He seeks all those who seek the stones, and leaves false trails of breadcrumbs to lead them into traps. He looks on as ancient beings are blinded by their greed. They want power, thinking it will satisfy them.

Loki has had power.

He knows it can never be enough; the Tesseract's power is unlimited, and one cannot drain a draught that is bottomless. The attempt will merely consume the length of your life.

Thor borrows wisdom from Midgard as he tries to improve his home.

He asks mounted warriors and charioteers to work with the healers, conveying them to citizens in need.

He schedules the healers to work in three shifts throughout the day. Most of the prayers Thor hears are in search of aid for ill loved ones, and he is not as skilled in healing as he'd like; this way there is always someone on hand to pick up the slack.

He and his friends go on hunts and haul their kills to the families of fallen soldiers and others who have had trouble since the war. The focus required for hunting gives Thor's mind a rare moment of peace and he relishes it.

Thor brings rain in the spring to slake the thirst of all the fields. Frigga always told him he was the reason her gardens were so lush - that they were nothing to brag about before he was born. On sleepless nights, Thor walks the farmers' lands, weaving up and down the furrowed paths. When he looks down on the realm as he flies with Mjolnir, he knows his mother wasn't just teasing him: his footprints are visible as green writing on the ground.

He takes to walking the farms whenever he can spare himself.

Sif can tell there's something eating at him, but when she asks, Thor just shakes his head. He knows that there's no explaining himself. There is no simple solution to his troubles. Nothing that battle or bloodshed can remedy. He and Loki have tried that path already. It left them worse off than they began.

In early summer Loki appears before Thor while Thor is on the throne.

Loki is tired and dirty, breathing hard and caked in the filth of battle. Stained with blood that is not his own. But his body looks firm and well fed. There might even be color in his cheeks -Thor can't be certain if it's the freckled bronze kiss of sunlight that he is seeing on his brother's skin, or merely the dust of combat and spray of blood.

“A seek a private audience with my king,” Loki pants, kneeling.

“You may have it,” Thor says, and the guards file out with sidelong glances and reluctant steps.

“The infinity gems are in the vault,” Loki says, when they're alone.

“All of them?”

“Aye, my lord.”

Thor raises his eyebrows and leans back on the throne, letting out a slow breath as he sags.

“What do we do with them?” Thor asks.

“I'm not certain,” Loki admits. “I want you to study seidr. It speaks to you very differently than it does me. You will see things I don't know to look for. You might see a solution for the stones. They are a danger to us as long as they remain here.”

“Very well,” Thor nods. “I would have you as my teacher, if I may.”

“You may, indeed,” Loki says, bowing.

Loki's magic is green.

Thor's is blue.

Odin's was white.

Thor hasn't yet studied enough to know what these things mean, but Loki has.

Loki's seidr is a living thing, sewing itself in him and growing out of him, finding him to be fertile soil. He is a vessel for it, and it aids him, not wanting to lose its host. It opens his body around a sword so that he is not pierced. It gives him air to breathe where there is none. It keeps watch while he is sleeping. And he feeds it and trains it and tends to it, making it stronger and sending its roots deep into his core.

Odin's magic was a different thing. His gift was the ability to call seidr to himself and shape it, as a craftsman collects and shapes wood. And Odin was a powerful builder, forcing all the forms and colors of witchcraft together. They canceled each other out and shone white – blank. He could bend them to any purpose, but because the seidr was not at home in him, he had to expend a great deal of energy calling it to himself and fitting it to his purpose, so it was exhausting for him to wield for any length of time.

Thor's is something else.

Jane Foster's great grandparents, immigrants from Ireland, belonged to the last generation of Midgardians to consistently believe in fairies.

Loki has spent much time in Ireland, seeking the magic that went into hiding there. The wisdom of that seidr is still visible, spelled out in old customs. Brides there traditionally wear blue, the old symbol of purity.

Thor has the magic of the sky and stars. Or, rather, he is that magic. It is always there in him, and he is always there in it.

A being of pure seidr.

As long as there are storms and suns, there will, in some sense, be Thor.

Loki thinks of Midgard. The little globe of blue and green, and sees a portrait of himself and his brother, curled together in the womb of space.

Thor learns quickly with Loki as his teacher. Loki's skill with words makes it easier for Thor to follow his instructions. And Loki knows both Thorand seidr well enough to know that there are some things Thor will never be able to do. Odin was always frustrated by Thor's inabilities, not realizing that asking Thor to shift his shape was like asking a cat to whistle. Loki simply shows Thor the workaround: glamours. Appearing to change your shape is often just as good as actually doing it.

They pass three years like this, studying in secret in the throne room.

Thor is a tireless student. He must be. He needs this danger out of the realms. And he needs the help of his friends on Midgard, so he can't afford to dawdle – their lives are all too brief.

Thor has a case built to house the gems and makes arrangements with Stark and Rogers.

When he goes to retrieve the stones before he heads to Midgard, Thor finds Loki waiting for him in the vault.

“I could use the stones - to undo the damage I've done - before we destroy them,” Loki says, eyes round and pleading.

“You know magic of that magnitude would come at a price so high it would leave the realms worse off than they were before,” Thor sighs.

“I want to mend this,” Loki whispers.

“Some breaks are not for mending. I would not lose all I've learned. And how far back would you have to go, Loki? At what point would you stop? And how would you intervene without upsetting the things you'd want to leave alone? It's impossible.”

“You would make me live with all I've seen. All I've done?”

“My friends on Midgard, with their short lives, still know that 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,'” Thor counters. “I live with what I've done.”

“What are you talking about?” Loki asks. “What have you done?”

“I've killed innocents, Loki. Almost started a war.”

“The Frost Giants were hardly-”

“My brother is a Frost Giant,” Thor interrupts, and Loki rolls his eyes.

“At any rate, that mess was of my making,” Loki continues.

“No,” Thor says, shaking his head. “You knew me well enough to know that I would make all the wrong choices. But the choices were no less mine.”

Loki accompanies Thor to Earth, warded from sight until they're in Stark's lab.

Steve and Tony are the only ones on Midgard who know that Loki is alive.

Neither man trusts S.H.I.E.L.D.

Thor and Loki both find that reassuring.

Loki sees sadness flit across his brother's features as Thor looks at the captain's face.

Empathy, Loki realizes.

Steve isn't aging: like Thor, he will watch his friends fade.

While Tony readies the room, Loki casts every ward he can think of on Thor's person.

Thor waits politely.

Rogers gapes at the magic pouring off of Loki's fingers and the unfamiliar words spilling from his lips.

Once Loki is satisfied, Thor borrows Steve's shield and takes it - and the stones - into the room that Stark built for him.

There are no windows, because they would be a weak point. The walls and door are twelve feet thick.

The men must wait for Thor to open the door from the inside once he has deemed it safe, since no sensors will be able to function in the space. If something goes wrong, they won't know it until it's too late, and Thor will be on his own.

The captain's shield will act as a crucible. Thor and his lightning will provide the heat. Mjolnir will forge the stones back into one.

Stark seals Thor into the room and he and Steve wait with the god of mischief.

Loki offers no small talk, but there is soon no space for conversation. They can hear thunder cracking within the chamber, making the walls shudder. It builds until there are no gaps between the claps and the air is filled with a roar that frays even Loki's nerves.

And then, above the hum of the thunder, comes a crash that makes all three attendants scream and cover their ears. Tony scrambles to toss them ear plugs.

Loki is in tears and Steve can see his lips moving around a mantra of “You fool,” but nothing can be heard over the thunder and the ringing of the hammer

Four more identical booms shake the building as Thor stacks the stones and Mjolnir smashes them together. There is a blinding flash and then Thor watches as the gems blend and fade to black.

The flash of light escapes the chamber, which leaves Stark at a loss, and then there is silence. It sets Loki screaming again – his brother's name, over and over until his throat is raw.

When they hear the buzz of the hydraulics opening the door, they all curse and sag in relief.

Thor emerges from the chamber naked, having burned all of his clothes away, body glowing with heat. Loki is frantic, grabbing him and looking him over, chanting Are you all right? and calling cool air to the room.

“I am well,” Thor says, though his voice is dry.

Loki keeps looking Thor over anyway, checking his ears and eyes and and murmuring more spells, weeping all the while and breathing far too fast.

Steve and Tony stare at the tears on Loki's cheeks.

Fragile and human.

Involuntary.

Helpless.

Honest.

Steve hears Peggy's voice in his ear, making a date as he crashes a jet; Tony hears Pepper's joke about hating job hunting.

Thor hands over the disk he made of the gems. It's black and glossy with rings like a tree stump.

Loki looks at it, checks it for seidr, and huffs a tiny laugh.

“It's a paper-weight now. But we'll put it back in the vault anyway. Can't be too careful.”

“Agreed,” Thor rasps.

Steve and Tony stare at Thor's eyes, which are still entirely blue and giving off visible light even in the brightness of the lab.

“Thank you for this, captain,” Thor says, and sets Steve's shield down on a lab table.

Loki warns Steve not to touch it until it cools off and remarks that is is a wonderful piece of weaponry: the shield is unmarked.

Tony goes to clap Thor's back for a job well done and Loki stops the man's hand.

“You'd be burned,” Loki warns. “Thor can't even drink water right now - it would boil away when it hit his lips.”

“That's... Okay. Wow. So, cocktails later,” Stark says, and backs away, folding his arms to remind him to keep his hands to himself.

  
  


2 Seas

 

When they return to Asgard, Thor flies naked to the vault with Loki, invisible, tucked into his side. They lock up the inert blob that has become of the stones and Thor maintains a blank facade and a straight spine until he gets to his room, at which point he drops his shoulders, drinks four pitchers of water, and collapses onto his mattress, though it's early afternoon.

Loki looks on from the foot of Thor's bed and hears Thor's mumbled thanks and goodnight. He knows it's only a matter of hours before the prayers come drifting in and disturb Thor's sleep.

So he sends seidr missives bearing the king's seal to every house in the realms.

The scrolls instruct that requests for healing are, henceforth, to be addressed directly to the healers.

Prayers for the general wellness of crops and livestock are unnecessary, as Thor already tends to them as often as he is able.

Prayers for rain are equally unnecessary.

Prayers of thanks are unnecessary.

Emergencies that can only be handled by the Allfather may be addressed to Thor.

All other issues are to be addressed to Baldr, the king's aide.

The Aesir have never heard of Baldr, but when they get desperate they call to him and a handsome young man appears and offers his assistance.

Loki knows that beauty begs to be trusted. It sets people at ease. His glamour is lovely. Amber curls and jade eyes. Long limbs wrapped in sleek muscle. Skin like honey and a voice like music. He is welcomed into homes and thanked with wine, sweets, and kisses.

He puts out fires, helps wrecked sailors, finds lost children, and lifts fallen trees.

No one knows where the king found his man, but they're all a bit jealous that they didn't find him first.

Loki flirts with everyone from behind his new face and counts their blushes as victories.

Thor sleeps for days. When he wakes he finds Loki sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him, reading some prettily bound book that belonged to their mother.

“How long have I been asleep?” Thor croaks, and Loki conjures water for him to drink.

“Nearly a week.”

Thor sips his drink, fusses with the sheets, and remembers his brother fussing over him after he destroyed the gems.

“You love me still,” Thor murmurs.

“Aye,” Loki snorts.

“And how long have you hated me?” Thor asks, and Loki sighs, sets down his book, and rakes a hand through his hair.

“Hate is not a pure thing, Thor. It can't exist without love to bind it to its source - to twist thwarted attraction into repulsion.”

“Still,” Thor murmurs. “You hated me.”

“Hated what you were becoming,” Loki admits. “Arrogant and short tempered. Though I know there were reasons for those traits. Pressure and expectation. Fear. Father's doubt and disapproval building on you for centuries, with no corrections or offers of instruction.”

“I meant to thank you. You were the only one who was willing to show me I wasn't ready to be king. Who saw me for what I was.”

“Do you see me for what I am?” Loki asks, and Thor's eyes search his face as though they are looking for a loved one in a crowd.

“I'm not sure,” Thor breathes. “Sometimes I think I can still see you in there. But it's like seeing a ghost. And I can never be certain it's real, or if you're just using my memories of you – my sentiment – to deceive me.”

“Lying is a sword with two edges,” Loki nods. “I can fool my enemies, but treachery is not a gift one seeks in their friends.”

“It is no less a gift,” Thor tells him. “Your cunning has saved us as often as my strength. Mother armed you well.”

“She lied to me,” Loki murmurs. “The same way he did. All that time. Sins of omission. I hate being angry with her. Anger always makes me feel like I'm his. He'd be furious when I complained about the heat. Made me feel pathetic. Went on and on about how it was unmanly. Now we know what he was so worried about, don't we?”

Thor nods and remembers.

Loki never liked the heat. It made him lethargic.

Odin said Loki was just being lazy and pushed him to train even harder. And Loki did it, though it made him dizzy, but it hurt to be doubted when he was telling the truth.

When his voice changed, Loki began to get stomach aches. One every year. It took three years to be certain of the pattern. A month after the first frost, his belly would feel bruised and he'd keen at the pain, even in his sleep. Thor would hear it through the wall. Odin would be in a foul mood all week as Loki sobbed and shivered in bed.

By the end of it, Loki would have a fever and he'd often vomit.

Thor couldn't understand why Odin would be anything other than worried. Loki wasn't faking.

Now Thor knows it's because Odin's own lie wasn't strong enough. Didn't run deep enough. Loki was getting his menses and then being poisoned by the decaying tissue that had no way to pass out of his body.

Frigga would come, looking sad and tired, and heal Loki somehow. Thor had always wished his mother would show Loki how to work that seidr, but she never did.

“Are you well?” Thor asks.

“Aye,” Loki says, absentmindedly playing with his own fingers. “You've never lied to me.”

“That's not true,” Thor sighs, and drags a hand over his face. “I have. I am.”

“When?” Loki asks, brow crumpling. “How?”

“I said I had no hope that you were still in there. I had – have - plenty. I said I would put you back in that cell. I wouldn't and I won't.”

“I knew those were bluffs,” Loki chuckles. “You jumped at the first chance you got to pull me out of that cage. Bluffing isn't lying. It's sleight of hand.”

“A trick,” Thor offers.

“Mmm. And I like tricks,” Loki says, winking.

Thor smiles and then his face twists.

“I wish I could trust you.”

“You can,” Loki breathes.

“How? And how could I even risk it? You've tricked me into thinking you dead twice now. I was a fool to fall for it the second time. To fall for it a third would be worse than foolishness – it would be madness. And it's so tempting to trust you, because I want it more than anything. But if I fall, I risk taking the realms down with me. I no longer have the luxury of merely making myself your fool.”

“I will not make my king a fool.”

“He will not let you,” Thor says, and rises to dress.

Loki watches through tears as gold skin is eaten up by grey silk, and it feels like he's seeing a metaphor for life in these realms. Where everything raw, wild, and perfect is consumed by things that are dull, conventional, and refined.

Loki thinks it's strange that he's still not immune to the ache of these tiny injustices after over a thousand years in their midst.

Thor learns of his aide, Baldr, and snorts to himself. Loki has been reading Midgard's myths.

But Thor is grateful for the reprieve Loki has granted him. It allows him more time to tend to the tasks that come naturally to him – speeding growth, easing birth, and bringing rain exactly as it's needed.

The realm is lush. Thor never felt free to shape it as he saw fit when it belonged to his father. Now that it is his own he does as he pleases, and all the world looks like one of his mother's gardens. He is relieved to feel like he resembles her at last – like some part of her still lives in him.

Thor finally has time for himself, and he revels in it.

He goes riding.

Hosts the rulers and scholars of other realms.

Spends time with his friends.

Sif is concerned about Baldr. She interrogates Thor about him as they sit around a fire after a hunt.

“Where did you meet him?” Sif asks, and Thor sips his ale to wet his lips before he recites Loki's lie.

“Alfheim.”

“He's not Aesir?” she says, shocked.

“I'd have thought that was obvious,” Thor laughs. “Have you not seen him?”

“He glows,” Fandral agrees.

“How do you know you can trust him?” Sif asks.

“He has never given me cause for doubt. Has he done aught to displease you?”

“No,” she admits. “But to take the place of a god-”

“A king,” Thor corrects. “And a king is but a servant to his realm. Without him I would have no rest. I could not be here with you now.”

“To Baldr,” Fandral says, raising his glass, and they toast.

Thor swims at the beach Frigga took them to as children. It's at the base of a steep grassy hill in a small cove. There's no wind. It's private. And it faces east, so it's a marvelous place to watch the stars come out.

Thor is on his back in the sand at sunset when he sees Loki walking down the hill above him, drawing closer, upside down in Thor's vision as he peers back over his own brow.

“Mother cast wards on this place to grant us privacy when we came here. I've put them back on. No one will interrupt you when you're bathing.”

“Thank you,” Thor says, and Loki sits down beside him and combs the sand with pale fingers.

“When will you grant this realm a queen?” Loki asks. “It seems odd not to have one.”

“Does it?”

“Mmmm.”

“You'll have to get used to it, I'm afraid. I'll not marry,” Thor says.

Loki raises his eyebrows at this, but keeps raking the sand with his fingertips, setting the seashells he finds on top of Thor's nipples.

“Have you not seen the way Sif looks at you?” Loki tries.

“Aye,” Thor sighs. “I could not have a child with her.”

“Why not?”

“Her sense of duty runs deeper than mine. She would give our baby to Hlidskjalf and I know I couldn't forgive her for it.”

“So you'll have no children?”

“I would have them if they could be my own. If they could grow up to belong to themselves.”

“What of the throne?” Loki asks.

“Our ways are old. We are stable. You saw how easily I slid into place. This wheel is well-oiled. Let the burden fall to one who desires it.”

“And what of gods?”

“Let us go where we are useful.”

When Thor looks down he sees that Loki has fashioned him a breastplate of seashells. They shift slightly with his every breath.

“I'm going to feel like an ass when I stand up and ruin all your work,” Thor says.

“I could adhere them permanently,” Loki offers, and Thor smiles and sits up, raining tiny conchs and cockles onto his lap before rising and offering his hand.

Loki takes it and Thor hauls him to his feet.

“Coming?” Thor asks, and Loki nods and pulls his tunic over his head.

They float on their backs and watch the stars turn overhead as the waves rock them in wet arms.

They wait until the constellation that Odin made of their mother's ashes has passed out of sight before they wade back to the shore. Their footsteps shake the water from their skin and hair as they climb the hill, clothes slung over their shoulders. When they get to the top, Loki speaks a spell and a cabin shimmers into view.

It's low and simple, with enormous windows overlooking the sea. Thor can see little lights of seidr floating by the ceiling behind the glass.

“When did you do this?” Thor asks.

“It's over three hundred years old now,” Loki admits. “But it still keeps the wet out. If you need it, say 'finna kot.' No one will find you here.”

“Thank you,” Thor says, and Loki shows him inside.

A hearth, a table, two comfortable chairs, a tiny bath, and a bed.

Most would be shocked at the austerity, but Thor knows Loki cares more for what is in his head than for what is out of it: you could stick him in a dung-heap and he could bear it if he had a good book.

Loki tosses Thor a towel and they dry off and dress.

The creak of wooden floors is welcome to Thor's bones, warmer and far more forgiving than stone. Books line the back wall and clutter the bed. The scent in the room is rich and familiar.

“This is where you live,” Thor murmurs.

“Yes.”

Thor hums and reads the runes carved into the lintel over the hearth; a blessing and a ward at once.

May this fire warm those who warm my heart.

May this roof shelter those who hold my soul.

“Mother's been here,” Thor says.

“Aye. We'd come when I'd get sick. And when we wanted to work seidr that we didn't think Odin needed to know about.”

Thor snorts and Loki wanders over to a shelf. He grabs a bottle of mead and wiggles the cork out of its neck with a squeaky pop, then takes a swig and passes it to Thor, who takes a long pull and lets out a low groan.

“Do you hate me?” Loki asks, and takes the bottle back from Thor's offered hand.

“No, never,” Thor says, once he's recovered from the shock of the question. “Hate what you do to me - what you do to yourself. What you put us through... want to throttle you all the time. But I've loved you all my days.”

Loki stares blankly at the floor for several seconds before nodding once and emptying the bottle. He slumps into a chair. Thor stares at the back of his brother's head and knows that Loki's face bears the same expression that it had on Midgard when Thor told him that he had mourned Loki's death – that everyone had.

Thor squeezes Loki's shoulder and kisses the top of his head, lips questing through damp curls to reach the solid warmth of the scalp.

“Goodnight,” Thor murmurs, and shows himself out.

Thor lies in bed for an hour before he gives up, grabs a magnum of mead, and flies out to the Bifrost.

“How fare the realms?” Thor asks.

“Quiet,” Heimdall says. “Apart from Midgard, but their quarrels are their own.”

“Fancy a drink?” Thor says, and Heimdall nods.

The gods sit, swinging their legs over the edge of the bridge and looking out into the stars.

“You have questions, Odinson.”

“I do,” Thor says, and thinks a moment. “How much do you know?”

“More than he thinks,” Heimdall answers, and Thor grins.

“You know all of my life. And more of his than anyone. Have you any advice?”

“Do not turn your back on him.”

“It's difficult to turn your back on someone when you don't know where they stand,” Thor sighs.

Heimdall smiles.

“You knocked a candle over once when you were a boy. Do you remember?” Heimdall asks.

“Aye,” Thor nods, and takes a swig of mead. “Set the drapes on fire.”

“And you put it out with your bare hands, though you were too young to know that you would not be harmed. You expected to be burned, but you did it anyway. Why?”

Thor shrugs.

“If I hadn't, the whole palace could have burned. The whole realm.”

“Indeed. Fire is a tricky thing,” The guardian god agrees. “If you do not tend it, it can destroy everything in its path. Or it can gutter and die and leave you in the dark and freezing. But if you build it a hearth, and feed it dry wood, it will keep you warm at night.”

Thor looks at Heimdall, startled.

Heimdall smirks at the stars and ignores the king's staring.

When they finish the mead, Thor hugs his thanks to Heimdall and walks back up the bridge.

Thor had always assumed that Loki knew the truth, but chose to hide it with his lies. Now he wonders if Loki tells lies to hide the fact that he isn't certain of the truth.

“Finna kot,” Thor says, at the hilltop in the cove.

The cabin appears, but there are no lights glowing within.

Thor finds his way inside and sets his empty bottle on the table.

“Thor?”

“Hmmm?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

Thor hears Loki flop back down in bed.

Loki hears the soft thud of boots hitting the floor and the rustle of fabric as Thor undresses. When Loki looks, he can just make out Thor's shape in the starlight that streams through the window; he's folding his clothes and setting them on a chair. And then he sees his brother's tall silhouette and hears the padding of bare feet as Thor carefully makes his way to the bed in the dark.

“Here,” Loki says, pulling the sheet back and then tossing it over Thor once he's settled in.

“Thank you.”

“You've had more mead,” Loki notes.

“Aye,” Thor yawns.

“What's happened?” Loki murmurs.

“When I try to run from foolishness I only find it faster,” Thor sighs, and the bed shakes with Loki's laughter.

“You always sort yourself out in the end,” Loki sighs.

“No,” Thor laughs. “I always have to ask for help. Have you not noticed? I always come up short. There is nothing I have accomplished alone. I rely on my friends and on you.”

“Standing on the shoulders of giants,” Loki teases, and Thor groans and pinches him and they fall asleep.

Thor wakes to Loki launching himself out of bed.

“What is it?” Thor gasps.

“Idiot fishermen always drifting too close to the edge of the realm,” Loki gripes, rushing out the door.

When Thor looks out the window he sees his brother turning into an osprey and flying toward the sea.

Thor has meetings with healers all day, hearing their concerns and compiling their observations. They want to expand the number of healers in the realm, and Thor is in agreement. He feels that this is the only field in which Asgard can truly consider itself advanced, and is, therefore, the greatest asset it has to offer the realms.

After supper, Thor goes back to the beach and lies on the sand to wait for the stars.

Loki joins him soon after.

Thor can feel Loki building something cold and damp on his chest. When he finally tips his head up to look at it, Thor finds that it is merely a rounded mound of sand centered over his sternum.

Thor rolls his eyes and sits up; the sand drops straight down onto his cock, making him jerk and grunt at the chill and the impact, and scattering the grains through the fur on his crotch.

Loki sits, vibrating with pent-up laughter, lips pinched between his teeth to hold it in, eyes welling over from the effort.

Thor shoves Loki onto his side, smacks his exposed behind, and then swims until all the sand has been rinsed from his skin.

Loki stands neck-deep in the ocean and stares at the sky.

“There she is,” Loki says, as Frigga's stars rise from the sea.

Thor swims over and the brothers float together, limbs and shoulders bumping. They remain so for an hour before Thor stands, scoops Loki up in his arms, and wades in to shore. They squeeze the water from their hair, collect their clothes, and climb up the hill. The grass is cool between their toes and the toads go quiet as they hear footsteps drawing near, forming a little bubble of silence around the brothers.

Inside, Loki pours them some water and then watches his brother's lips reach forward to meet the edge of the gold cup.

“May I stay again?” Thor asks.

“You may.”

Loki sits up in bed reading.

Thor lies beside him and listens to the layers of sound that surround him. The murmur of Loki's breathing. The flutter of a page being turned. The trilling of tree frogs coming in through the windows. The distant rush of the surf against the shore.

It lulls Thor to sleep.

He wakes when Loki shifts to set his book on the bedside table, recalls his lights of seidr, and then scoots down the mattress to settle on his side.

Thor hooks his arm around Loki's middle and drags him back until Loki's spine is flush with his belly.

“Are you awake?” Loki murmurs, assuming his brother is dreaming of ripe-bottomed maidens.

“Mmmhmm,” Thor hums, lips buzzing faintly against the back of Loki's head.

“What are you doing?”

“Something foolish,” Thor whispers, and Loki can hear the mischievous smile on his brother's face. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Loki breathes.

Thor's arm still encircles Loki's waist, and his thumb is brushing the ribs on Loki's right side, skin whispering where it catches the sheets. Thor buries his nose in Loki's hair and Loki can feel his brother's ribs expand against his own as Thor draws a deep breath. Warm air pours out against Loki's nape soon after.

“You smell like the sea,” Thor says, squeezing Loki slightly and kissing the last bone of the neck.

Loki can feel faint tugs against his scalp as Thor nuzzles the black hair pooled on the pillow.

Thor curls his knees up to slot them behind his brother's own, and Loki can feel the humid press of Thor's erection where it's crushed against his ass. He isn't able to linger on the sensation for long before Thor's lips are wrapping around the lobe of his ear, and though Thor's voice is low, Loki hears every shift of lips, tongue, and breath against the pearls of Thor's teeth.

“You taste like the sea, too.”

Loki's quick-drawn breath is nearly lost in the rustle of sheets and the shifting of limbs, but Thor catches it.

And then Thor is on his back with the delicious weight of his brother laid out over his front. The warmth of Loki's lips against his own has Thor's mouth opening under them – a moon flower beneath the midnight curtain of Loki's curls. Thor's hands smooth over the curves of Loki's behind, fingertips teasing at the cleft, taunting all the points on that line that burn for want of touch.

The brothers hum and moan into their kisses. Sometimes they catch each other's eyes - little glints of light in the dark, flickering with their blinks. Loki has one arm under Thor's neck and the other draped over Thor's head, as if shielding it - or perhaps preventing its escape.

Their cocks are trapped, swollen and sticky between their bellies, throbbing with every nip and tug of lips the gods trade. After a long suck on Loki's tongue, Thor groans so deeply Loki shivers; Thor can feel the wetness that seeps from Loki's cunt dripping out onto his skin. It runs across Thor's balls before it trickles down behind them to slick the puckered knot of his anus.

Thor feels like he's being fertilized.

His fingers give Loki's buttocks a firm squeeze and the muscles flex in answer as Loki lifts his hips and shuffles up the bed on his elbows and knees. Thor feels a cool line drawn along his cock as a strand of fluid stretches across it.

And then the wet folds of skin at the mouth of Loki's cunt brush the tip of Thor's prick as it bobs with their kisses. Loki drops his hips a fraction of an inch and the lips of his quim begin to spread.

Thor gasps.

“Like this?” Loki whispers.

“Anything,” Thor says, and Loki sinks onto Thor's cock while Thor swears against his lips.

Thor's hands hold Loki's hips in place, pinning him there. Even the softest kisses send a jolt through Thor's prick, and Loki can feel Thor's flesh moving deep within his own.

Thor can feel Loki's cunt flexing like a fist; feel Loki's cock pressing into his belly.

Loki rocks on his knees and elbows, swaying up and down along Thor's body, wringing thrills from nerves and pulling whimpers from throats. They glide together until they're both shaking.

“Spill,” Loki whispers, and Thor's hands tug Loki's hips down tight against his own again as he arches beneath Loki and groans into his neck.

Loki's cry is softer, but lasts twice as long, and Thor can feel seed pulsing out onto his stomach while Loki's hips twitch faintly in his hands.

They kiss lazily while they catch their breath. Thor's fingers thread through Loki's hair and Loki drags his cheeks over the scruff of Thor's beard.

When Thor sucks a bruise under the bend of Loki's jaw, Loki's cunny contracts. Thor's appreciative hum is almost predatory.

Thor wraps Loki in his arms and rolls them over. Loki's legs fold up around Thor's waist and somehow the angle makes every drive of Thor's cock feel like it's tickling Loki's ribs. He laughs and hears Thor chuckle in answer. And Loki's hands are free to tug Thor's hair and scratch Thor's flanks. And Loki doesn't have to worry about rhythm or stamina or balance or speed; he can just lie there, flexing the little tunnel of muscle within him so that all of its most sensitive points are pressed more tightly to Thor's prick.

Loki keens when he comes, and then tugs Thor in so tight with his arms and legs that it's all Thor can do to keep breathing. But Thor likes it, because in the stillness he can better feel Loki's body trembling against his own.

“Another,” Loki says, and Thor shakes with laughter and obliges his brother.

On their fifth go, Thor spends in unison with Loki, and the pulses of semen add another layer to the sensory tempest burning through Loki's nerves.

Thor kisses Loki deeply and then carefully lifts his hips, sliding out of Loki's body to the tune of a breathy sigh.

Sharper sighs follow as Thor slowly kisses Loki's neck, nipping and sucking the thin skin, following sleek muscles to the romantic arabesques of the collarbones. Thor dips his tongue into the hollow at the base of the throat, tasting salt and stone.

Loki's nipples press up against Thor's lips, driven forward by a deep breath, and Thor sucks and nibbles them until Loki's hands come up to guide Thor's head down.

The brush of Thor's beard over the planes of Loki's belly is strangely soothing, and Loki keeps Thor's head there, holding strands of blond hair like reins until he's had his fill.

Loki spreads his legs wide to let Thor kneel between them, and Thor hunches over like he's at prayer.

Thor drags the tip of his nose down the ridge of Loki's cock and over the seam of his balls, feeling the loose skin jumble and bunch up against him briefly before it springs free. And then, just behind the testicles, he stops and puckers his lips to kiss the hooded bundle of nerves he knows is hidden there.

Loki bucks.

Thor lets his tongue slide slowly down between plump lips. He follows the soaked curves of Loki's cunt until he can stretch no farther, then hums and curls the tip of his tongue as he licks his way back out and up over Loki's clitoris.

Loki arches into the touch and cries out softly.

Thor licks Loki clean and then licks him until he's sobbing.

Kisses, sucks, flicks, and nuzzles until Loki is a mess again.

Laps him clean once more.

Thor is half asleep with his temple perched on Loki's thigh when he feels the body beneath him shifting.

“Come here,” Loki pants, and Thor can hear Loki's fingers drumming against his breast better than he can see them.

He lays his heart down over his brother's and their breathing slows in tandem.

Loki runs his tongue across Thor's lips.

“The sea again,” Thor murmurs, and Loki nods and falls asleep.

  
  



End file.
